What Benefits Can Schools Expect to Receive from Using Immunization Information Systems?

Immunization information systems can offer many benefits to school personnel. As a school nurse or school administrator, you are in charge of making certain that all your students are fully immunized and ready to learn. With the ever growing complexity of the recommended immunization schedule it has become increasingly difficult to determine which vaccines are required for each student. Participating in your state’s IIS will facilitate disease prevention by providing you with accurate and timely immunization records for each of your students. Using an IIS will help streamline the immunization process, saving staff time by alleviating the burdensome task of individually verifying each student’s record.

Immunization Information Systems in Action.

Wausau County, Wisconsin school district estimated spending 56 hours sending out immunization cards to parents, 90 hours entering immunizations reported by parents into their own system, 25 hours filing cards, 95 hours generating non-compliance letters to parents and 30 hours calling immunization providers to attain records. The school district had a student database for immunizations, however it was not linked with the healthcare providers in the area.

In the Fall of 2000, Wausau began a pilot project to integrate the student records with the local registry called the Regional Early Childhood Immunization Network (RECIN). Before integrating the two systems, school personnel had to call student’s providers to track down the records, and then enter them into the school system’s database. Julie Willems Van Dijk, Director of Preventive Health Services for Marathon County and a member of the Wausau School Board hailed the system integration. “Reports required soon after school starts took days to create. With RECIN it takes just a few minutes for the same report.” The 95-hour task of generating non-compliance letters was reduced to one hour.

Wendy Garlitz, RECIN System Coordinator found that many children were not fully protected. She stated that “many children had the correct number of immunizations, but they did not have them at the right ages to be fully protected against disease. When (school) staff checked records manually, they did not catch the error. RECIN, programmed to comply with state law, does catch those errors.”

How Can My School(s) Begin Using IIS?

Schools that wish to gain access to automated immunization data should contact their local health department, to determine whether a registry is available in their locale and how the schools can collaborate. Legal considerations regarding access and consent must be dealt with. For example, while some schools have the authority to log on directly to immunization systems only to view student records, others may be permitted to both view and update the records. In other instances schools would not have direct access to the systems, but would instead be provided with a printed listing of children’s records and compliance status. Family Educational Rights and Privacy (FERPA) Regulations also must be considered.

Download How Immunization Information Systems Can Help Schools Expedite Student Immunization Assessments... Using Your State's IIS To Reduce Time Spent Tracking Immunization Records brochure in PDF format

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